"Oh, but mother, he would be so delighted to know. I always share everything with Basil."
"No doubt," said Mrs. McMahon, "but in this case I want you to do nothing of the sort. You will know why in a moment. Basil, dear fellow as he is—I am sorry I made some petulant remarks about your engagement a few minutes ago—is an Englishman. Apart from his high scientific attainments, which have yet to be proved, by the way, Basil has all the Englishman's solidity and caution. He is not imaginative. He is not a man to risk anything upon a supreme chance. Now, regard the situation in which we are."
"We are free from all debt, at any rate," Ethel answered wonderingly; "and we shall have a nice little surplus in hand."
"You must look farther than that, my dear," said her mother, with the odd brightness in her eyes growing more marked than ever. "A hundred pounds is all very well. We may buy shares in other lottery tickets. We may even buy a whole ticket, but that is a single chance, and means a great deal of waiting. Since Fortune is smiling upon us there is another and surer way to court her favours. I have been thinking quickly, as I generally do when there is something important to be decided. With this money"—she began to speak slowly and impressively—"you and I can go to Monte Carlo. We can go by the slow train, third class. It will take us twenty-four hours, and not be very comfortable. But that I can endure, and if I can, then so can you. I know the Principality of Monaco very well. At Monte Carlo itself all the hotels and places are terribly expensive, and far beyond our means, but only a quarter of a mile away, in that part known as the Condamine, there are lots of quite inexpensive pensions which would serve our purpose very well."
"But what on earth are we to do in Monte Carlo? and how can I leave the school?"
"The school, my dear Ethel, is of minor importance. Nothing venture, nothing have. What we are to do at Monte Carlo is to turn what will remain of our hundred pounds into such a sum as will make us independent for the rest of our lives—a sum that will allow me to go to Switzerland, as the doctor ordered, that will start you comfortably in your married life with Basil Gregory."
The last shot told, and set the girl's pulses throbbing furiously.
"Oh, mother," she said, "if it were only possible!"
"It is perfectly possible, my dear Ethel," Mrs. McMahon returned, and there was such calm certainty in her tone that the eager girl, carried off her feet by the arrival of the lottery cheque, and the brilliant vista which was beginning to unveil itself, hardly questioned her mother's wisdom at all.
"I know Monte Carlo very well," said the old lady. "I was there often enough with your poor dear father. On one occasion he lost every penny he had at the tables there, and we were compelled to apply to the Administration for what they call the viatique—that is, a sufficient sum to pay our expenses back to Paris, from whence we had come. It is never refused. But, on looking back, I see how foolish both your father and I were. We played recklessly. We ignored the most elementary rules of chance. We were rightly punished. For many months now I have been dreaming of just such a chance as has come to us at last. I have been studying the new book written by a professor, who won large sums of money at Monte Carlo, in the interests of mathematics, on the Theory of Probabilities. I have gained much knowledge from it. I propose to utilise that knowledge very shortly."